Morning Manna | Jonah 1:6 | Arise, call upon thy God

Jonah 1:6

6 So the shipmaster came to him, and said unto him, What meanest thou, O sleeper? arise, call upon thy God, if so be that God will think upon us, that we perish not.

It's no wonder we find the disobedient prophet deep asleep. Running from God is hard work, your mind is carrying a load of fear, and thoughts of consequence fill your mind, your heart is carrying a load of conviction and the guilt of your disobedience weighs down on you until not only are you mentally and spiritually exhausted but even physically exhausted. He had gone to great lengths to run from the presence of the Lord. The Bible uses this phrase in verse 3, "He found a ship going Tarshish; so he paid the fare thereof." It had cost him a full day's work and a considerable amount of money but he thought it an even trade to have his will, little did he know the fare of that trip was not even half paid yet. He was going to pay not only for the fare of the ship to the ship master but he was going to pay his master, The LORD, for his journey back to Ninevah.

Our verses today are a wakeup call to all who may be on the run, You've fallen asleep. Your running from God has made you blind to the circumstances you are in, soon your whole ship is going down if something isn't done. The Godless shipmaster had more sense than Jonah at this point, and I've seen some of God's people be so oblivious to the danger their vessels were in that even the Godless people around them seem to have more sense than they. While you are at rest in your sinking ship others will perish, what meanest thou O sleeper? People are going to hell and you are content to sleep? Lives are at stake, Ninevah is waiting on you, and the crew your with is in peril, "What meanest thou, O sleeper?" Would to God some of us would wake up and see the position we have run into, and arise and call upon our God. 

Jonah 2:1 "Then Jonah prayed unto the LORD his God out of the fish's belly,"

Jonah's heart was so hard that he never did call upon the name of the LORD until he was in the belly of the whale. Perhaps if he had called upon him from the ship, and told the crew the solution was to deliver him to Ninevah he could have rode on top of the sea instead of the bottom. Still, we'll never know if that could have been the case because he never bothered to call upon the Lord until he was in the fish's belly. If you are that sleeper, and God has called you to a place, to a people, then rest assured the gifts and callings of God are without repentance, you can go on top of the sea, or underneath it. Today my prayer is that I can be the voice of the shipmaster in your sleeping ears, "What meanest thou, O sleeper? Arise, call upon thy God."